


Tide's Low Ebb

by Arsenic



Category: Dark-Hunter Series - Sherrilyn Kenyon
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Gore, Shipwrecks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 17:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1695716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Styxx knew he couldn't get off the island.  That didn't mean he couldn't try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tide's Low Ebb

**Author's Note:**

> Written for hc_bingo May rare-fandom challenge 2014. 
> 
> Thanks to egelantier for help with brainstorming.
> 
> Unbeta'ed.

**Vanishing Isle: 7437 B.C.E.**

At first, building the boat is just something to do. Styxx does not know how long it has been since he's spoken to someone else, felt the touch of another, had a day that was more than a waiting period before he could go back to sleep, and night that was more than a bridge of nightmares between one day and the next. His hunting skills would make even Artemis envious. 

_It would serve her right._

His woodcarvings long ago started resembling what he actually wants them too, and then began having depth and layers. He has made murals in the sand and begun again the next day, after the tide has stolen his work away.

Building a boat seems like it will take awhile, teach him something new, something that, like everything else, he has no use for. He has no intention of trying to take the boat anywhere. Styxx still has the sense memory of washing up on the shore the day he threw himself off the cliff. He cannot die and this island will not let him go. The boat is just a distraction.

*

It has probably been years since he actually finished the boat when he becomes desperate enough to climb in and guide it off the shores of the island. His first few trips—he stops counting after three—are just jaunts around the island. He can feel the push of the boundary, but the currents will allow for him to row the length and width of the landmass. For a while—years?—it is good enough, something to do when he gets too restless.

Styxx couldn't say exactly what changes the day he decides to try and take the boat further. It's not as if he's suddenly decided he can somehow change the fabric of the universe. Vanishing Isles are an entity unto themselves, and as a resident he is as bound up in that as any of the rocks on the ground are, the limbs of the trees.

All the same, he cannot help steering the boat away from the isle, into seas that become steadily more rocky. He cannot help straining against the power of the wind, the whip of salt-sharp waters, pressing forward even as the wood begins to come apart, splintering into him, around him. Styxx cannot win against the elements, he does not imagine he can.

But he cannot stop fighting, either.

*

He wakes up on the shore, water lapping as gently as ever. Breathing hurts, a sure sign he has broken a few ribs. A quick glance at the places which throb confirms he needs to remove the larger splinters, the ones that are probably interrupting the functions of muscle and other tissue. From the angle of it, one of his wrists is broken.

He concentrates on that problem first. He needs both his wrists.

The world goes gray and a bit fuzzy at the edges when the bones realign, and Styxx throws salt water up. It burns worse than the brands had, forcing its way out.

He stays conscious for the removal of the wooden sliver embedded just above his left kneecap, and the one straight through his foot. The one that has perforated his kidney is only about a third of the way out when the pain overcomes him, and he slips into the black.

*

Styxx wakes shivering: the cold of night having fallen while he was unawares, the reactive chill of the fever running through his body. He needs water. He needs water and to build a fire. Fire will keep the worst of the predators away.

He manages to stay conscious through the last two-thirds of the splinter removal, but grays out at the dry-heaving that follows, moving his broken ribs. He needs—he has to—

He loses the thought at the sound of hyenas approaching. It is not in his nature to simply give in, but he cannot run from them, not in this condition. Not for the first time, he wishes they _could_ kill him, end this, send him away, anywhere but here.

The first bite is the worst. After that he can lose himself in the overwhelming nature of the agony. His experience in that area never fails to take over and help him out.

*

The burn of the sun, of his wounds, brings Styxx up again at some point. The infection is now raging. He's so thirsty. Hunger is a raw ache, as extensive as his wounds and as unfixable. He should drag himself further along the shore, into the water. The salt will wash the bites out. Also, probably pull him back into unconsciousness.

He cannot come up with a better plan. He has no idea how long it takes him to reach the tide. He screams when the water hits. There is nobody here to hear, nobody to mock him. He feels blood on his lips soon enough, and for a moment he is back in the hands of the Dionysion priests, the belief that someone might help him curling up in his chest.

The water washes over him again, mid-scream, and burns into his lungs. He remembers he is alone.

*

The water heals him. It is terribly, sharply cold against his fever-pitched skin, and the salt tears through every inch of him, over and over. Nights and days pass in a haze of dark-light-dark-light. And by the time he can get to his knees, can move from the outer limits of the sand, he has gone so far beyond hunger that he passes out four times before he can even gather enough to eat, to begin combating the issue.

All-in-all, Styxx supposes the whole venture goes exactly as he should have suspected. He promises himself he will remember, will not try again, will stop flinging himself against gods and fate and powers that are stronger than him, always have been, always will be.

*

**Vanishing Isle: 5297 B.C.E.**

He forgets. Or perhaps he just loses his will to care. Maybe he thinks the days of agony will at least be something different. Styxx does not think on his motivation too much. He simply starts building another boat.

*

**Vanishing Isle: 1348 C.E.**

If he cannot escape the island, then he can, at least, escape his own thoughts for a bit, let the pain take him, let the sea wash away everything that matters.

*

**Somewhere off the coast of Nova Scotia: 2017 C.E.**

For a girl born of an Egyptian father and Atlantean mother, Bet likes cool, crisp weather more than Styxx would have credited. He's quietly appreciative that when they travel, it is never to the sultry heat of tropical islands. The cold of northern winds is different than the cold of night in the isles, does not smell of salt and stagnation in the same way. He can easily breathe in the autumn bite of Canada's oncoming winter.

When Bet suggested a cruise, Styxx hadn't even given thought to disagreeing. His willingness to refuse her anything is less than stalwart. Thankfully, she's careful in what she asks for.

Now, on the aft deck of the ship, Styxx's skin aches in phantom remembrance of bites and tears and inflammation. He distracts himself by not allowing his eyes to wander from Ari, who has already made friends with some of the other toddlers traveling with them, and is seated at a deck table, drawing a representation of the surrounding scenery. 

Bet, who has been taking a walk around the ship, familiarizing herself, settles in next to him, his arm coming around her in what feels like nothing more than pure muscle memory. She kisses his jaw. "Everything all right?"

With her fitted against him, his sights on Ari, he is able to nod. He kisses the crown of her head. "Perfect."

*

Styxx wakes immediately at Bet's frightened bark of his name. He blinks, "B-bathia?"

Her fingers are splayed over his chest, warm and steady, a point of focus. She says, "You're shaking. You were—you were having a nightmare."

He pulls her in and she comes easily, wrapping herself around him, curling into his hold. He brushes her hair back. "It's all right. I'm all right. I'm right here."

"You're still shivering."

He's cold, which he knows isn't right. The cabin is temperature controlled. And yet the chill seems to originate in his stomach, his blood. She says, "Sh, let me pull the covers back up."

He doesn't want to let her go, but he does as she tells him, infinitely comforted when she comes back seconds later, crushing him to her. The heat of her skin helps, the whisp of her breath against his neck. She cups the back of his head with one palm. "Tell me, Styxx."

He breathes the scent of her in, letting it wash away the phantom smells of infection and fear. "I tried to escape the island a few times."

She laughs, but it is more sob than anything else. "Of course you would have."

"I couldn't—"

"I know, my love. I know."

Another deep breath. "The sea would return me."

"Broken," she says, the knowledge of the gods' work deep in her tone.

"It would take some time to heal," he agrees. He laughs, a sharp shout of it. "You would think, at least on the third try, that I would have left myself water and food supplies. But it probably only would have been on the wrong side of the isle."

She rolls him over, straddling him, kissing him with a pressure and fierceness that wipes almost everything away. Then, as abruptly as she began, she stops, climbing off the bed and pulling him to his feet. He does not ask, just follows. 

Bet pushes him onto the sofa and disappears into the kitchenette their suite provides. Styxx glances over at the baby monitor nearest, but Ari is sound asleep in the room attached to theirs. At four and a half he's a little old for the monitor, but every time they try giving it up neither of them sleeps.

Bet returns, the soft sound of her feet against the floor familiar in the best of ways. In her hands is a bowl of strawberries, apple pieces, and grapes. She sits facing him on the sofa. "Open."

He parts his lips and obediently takes a piece of fruit from her fingers. He chews, swallows, and the sweet-tartness is soothing, helping to patch what was "healed" millennia ago. He smiles at her. 

Her expression is soft in the dark of the cabin, grateful. She tucks her feet atop his. "I will not leave your side. Not until we are home. Perhaps not then."

Styxx reaches a hand out to tuck one long, dark strand of hair behind her ear. "My beautiful wife."

"Yours," she agrees.

He takes more fruit from her. "And I am yours."


End file.
